The city trembled.
Not from wind. Not from earth. From something older.
From below.
Kael felt it first in his chest: a pulse that matched the root inside him. It had grown, fed. Hungry. Thirsting. And now, it sang in a language older than blood.
Kane stepped to the edge of the ribcage bridge. He let the spine-blade dangle from one hand, letting the dripping eye roll between his fingers.
"City doesn't like visitors," Kane said. "Especially not ones that bring dessert."
Kael followed his gaze. The streets of Spinedral above were twitching. Buildings bowed and shivered. Windows wept black ichor. The people—or what remained of them—stirred in a half-dream, whispering names they did not know they knew.
The Dark Tome pulsed at Kael's feet. Its pages writhed, alive with promises and curses. Words flared red-hot, etching themselves into the flesh of the book as if it were remembering its own sins.
"The Bloom rises. The Blade cuts. Spinedral unbinds."
Kael knelt, touching the tome. Its voice slithered into him, coiling around memory and desire.
"Feel it?" Kane asked, stepping closer. "The city smells fear. And it smells… opportunity."
Kael did not answer. He closed his eyes. The root in his chest had twisted into something larger—something aware. It was no longer just hunger. It was thought. Strategy. Malice. It whispered of walls that could bleed, of towers that could stretch tendrils, of streets that could fold over themselves like paper.
A scream split the air—not above, not below, but inside. The god. The one Thirn had warned about.
Kane grinned. "Guess we woke it."
Kael's hand brushed against the spine of the Dark Tome. The words inside it burned a single instruction into his mind:
"Consume. Reshape. Command."
He looked to Kane. His brother's grin was wide. Pale, bloodied, impossible. The city reflected him: crooked shadows, impossible angles, walls bending toward the scream.
"Shall we?" Kael whispered.
"Shall we," Kane echoed, his voice low, dangerous, dripping amusement.
The bridge beneath them groaned. Ribcages cracked. Black sinew stretched and coiled like living ropes. Thirn stepped back, paper-dress fluttering as if caught in a breeze from nowhere, her knife still gleaming with obsidian blood.
"The Bloom and the Blade…" she murmured. "The threshold is broken. The God hungers. And so shall the world."
Kane turned to Kael, blade now in both hands. He tapped it against the bridge.
"Ready to rewrite a city?"
Kael's lips curved. "Ready to awaken a god."
He rose.
The Dark Tome floated upward, orbiting him like a dark moon. Its pages twisted, a cyclone of blackened parchment, each word a lash and a promise. The city above quivered, then screamed. The scream was a chorus now—thousands of voices merged into one, screaming for salvation, for vengeance, for blood.
Kael stepped forward.
And the city answered.
Buildings tilted toward him, bowing. Streets tore themselves open, revealing veins of black stone pulsing with life. Shadows moved independently, shaping themselves into hands, claws, mouths. From the tallest spire, a figure—hulking, faceless, infinite—stirred. The god Thirn had warned about, its presence stretching and folding reality.
It was hungry.
Kane laughed. "Looks like someone's ready for dinner."
Kael's palm opened. The root writhed, a living darkness, spilling over the streets, drinking fear, reshaping stone, bending reality to its will.
The Dark Tome whispered:
"You are both. You are all. Become."
Kael glanced at Kane. Their shadows merged, stretching long and impossibly tall across the trembling city.
"Let's show it what hunger really is," Kael said.
And together, the Bloom and the Blade stepped into the streets of Spinedral.
The city screamed.
The god watched.
And the world began to bleed.